My texts are sent in English arrive in Chinese

I am having the exact same issue except I will add that both the texts in question were sent via the iMessage app on my macbook pro. Neither of the recipients uses an iphone so they must have transmitted via my cell carrier (ATT).

One of the recipients copied and pasted the message back to me and it looked like this: 䁈䁥䁹䀠䁴䁨䁥䁲䁥䀠䀭䀠䁗䁯䁵䁬䁤䀠䁬䁯䁶䁥䀠䁴䁯䀠䁳䁴䁯䁰䀠䁢䁹䀠䁡䁮䁤䀠䁳䁡䁹䀠䁨䁥䁬䁬䁯䀬䀠䁳䁥䁥䀠䁹䁯䁵䀠䁡䁮䁤䀠䁹䁯䁵䁲䀠䁰䁬䁡䁣䁥䀠䁳䁯䁭䁥䀠䁴䁩 䁭䁥䀠䁳䁯䁯䁮…䁗䁨䁡䁴䀠䁤䁯䁥䁳䀠䁮䁥䁸䁴䀠䁷䁥䁥䁫䀠䁬䁯䁯䁫䀠䁬䁩䁫䁥䀿䀠䀠䁍䁡䁹䁢䁥䀠䁡䁦䁴䁥䁲䁮䁯䁯䁮䀠䁣䁯䁦䁦䁥䁥䀠䀨䁩₉䁬䁬䀠䁢䁲䁩䁮䁧䀠䁴䁨䁥䀠䁣 䁡䁫䁥䀩䀠䁯䁲䀠䁡䀠䁧䁬䁡䁳䁳䀠䁯䁦䀠䁷䁩䁮䁥䀠䀨䁉₉䁬䁬䀠䁢䁲䁩䁮䁧䀠䁴䁨䁥䀠䁷䁩䁮䁥䀩䀠䁯䁮䁥䀠䁥䁶䁥䁮䁩䁮䁧䀿䀠䀠䁌䁥䁴䀠䁭䁥䀠䁫䁮䁯䁷䀠䀭䀠䁁

thomas_r. wrote:

This actually does not appear to be an AT&T issue or an emoticon issue. Looks like this is due to hacked Apple IDs.

No hacking or spam involved in this one, but an encoding mismatch affecting real messages recognized by both Apple and AT&T. Another thread with more info is at

Re: Sent text messages are turning into Chinese

My mom's iphone 6 is having the same problem and it started today 10/14/16. One answer mentioned it being a carrier issue -- she is on AT&T, are you also? I had her restart her phone and hope that fixes it. She is also texting to a non-iphone user so it's text not imessage.

My wife and I are both having this problem on our iPhones. It started last night, 10/13/2016.

Most texts are fine, but texts to two different friends have been sent in English and arrive in Chinese on more than one occasion now. It does not translate on Google.

One has an iPhone, the other an Android. Both of us are on current iOS. We are using AT&T.

Looking for ideas also.

I am also having this issue, starting 10/15/16. Same issues as everyone else: only 2 people receive text messages in Chinese (so far), and it's intermittent. I have since signed up for two-step verification, but still have this issue.

I'm having this same issue with one of my friends. I did some looking around on various support communities, sorry if this breaks any rules here, but I saw on AT&T that its the emojis that are causing that to happen. I looked and sure enough, all of my texts that my friend said arrived in chinese had emojis in them. I wouldn't use them until its fixed on whoever's end.

It's not really chinese but English utf-8 being read as if it were utf-16. The message starts out

"Hey there - Would love to stop by and say hello, see you and your place some ti me soon &What does next week look like?"

No idea what is causing this for everyone...

I'm having the same trouble everyone is talking about 10/19/16. I looked back and most contained emoji's, but not ALL. Randomly texts sent in English arrive in what looks like Chinese lettering. Some texts are OK, never know when it's going to happen. I have AT&T as well as the friend I text the most.

I too am having this issue, which began on 10/7/16 for me. I texted and used two emoticons at the end. The emoticons appeared, but the rest of the text was in squares and rectangles. I am unaware of her carrier, but I do know she doesn't have an iPhone. Last night I texted my daughter back, whom I am on the same AT&T account with. She does not have an iPhone. One text was fine, the other where I had used emoticons, was greek to her! (She sent me a screenshot which looked similar to the previous example.) I will discontinue the emoticons, until this issue is resolved. Thank you~

Today, 10-23-16, it happened to me for the first time. I sent a text message from my MacBook Pro and my friend with an iPhone 4 received the text in the same "Chinese" looking font. Additionally, the message had a ":-)" at the end, and it did not make into a emoji but did send as such. Sent it to myself, and it worked fine. My Mother has the same problem with only one of her friends and it has been ongoing for about 2 weeks, only with this one person. Not sure what kind of device though... My mother and I both use AT&T for service. Any advice? Cannot find anything on the internet anywhere... weird... virus? This is not good... use my phone for work, and need it to work...

GElkinsPilot wrote:

Any advice? Cannot find anything on the internet anywhere... weird... virus?

There are many messages about this in these forums. It's an encoding bug that has to be fixed by Apple and or ATT&T. You could try never using emoticons or smart punctuation (curly quotes, special dashes, etc) -- some users think this helps.

This actually does not appear to be an AT&T issue or an emoticon issue. Looks like this is due to hacked Apple IDs. See:

https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2016/10/20/poor-andor-reused-passwords-lead-to- chinese-spam-flood-on-imessage/

thomas_r. wrote:

This actually does not appear to be an AT&T issue or an emoticon issue. Looks like this is due to hacked Apple IDs. See:

https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2016/10/20/poor-andor-reused-passwords-lead-to- chinese-spam-flood-on-imessage/

That is a separate issue. In one case people are themselves sending a message in English (i.e., they know they sent it) and it arrives at it's intended recipient looking like it is in Chinese and in the other case (the hacked case) Chinese messages are originating from an Apple ID of a person who knows that they did not send them.

A friend was having this issue. Settings>General>Keyboards>Keyboards -- Edit, then select the Emoji keyboard and delete it. Test to make sure it is fixed, then update to 10.1 and readd the emoji keyboard.